EU: Asylum Seekers
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, like other noble Lords I shall speak briefly about the long-term and the short-term questions. Surely, the gravity of the situation is underlined by the speeches we have already heard during the debate, but by the statistics as well. Some 3,500 people have already been fished from the sea dead, with 1,800 corpses reclaimed in this year alone.
On Monday, I raised the situation in Eritrea. Last year, Eritrea and Syria accounted for 46% of all those fleeing over the Mediterranean. As the noble Baroness said, we have to tackle this problem at source but that is a long-term issue. What do we do in the mean time? I find it impossible to justify the 187 places for resettlement in the UK, as was just referred to, against Germany’s 30,000, the Lebanon’s 1.2 million, Turkey’s 1.8 million and Jordan’s 600,000. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will respond to the comments made by Sir Peter Sutherland, the United Nations special representative of the Secretary-General, who at the weekend rebuked us for not taking our “fair share” of refugees. I hope he will say whether he has considered the requests of the Refugee Council to consider legal avenues for refugees, such as humanitarian or asylum visas, and to look at ways to reunite families. I also wonder whether we have consulted with other Commonwealth countries about a more coherent international response. So yes, the European Union should be involved but the Commonwealth and the international community of the United Nations clearly should be involved as well.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on 3 June, the Government said that “the vast majority” of Mediterranean migrants “are not asylum seekers” to give some justification for our not taking part in the EU quota system, but that is simply not so. Are we seriously saying that the UNHCR is wrong in insisting that those escaping from Eritrea or Syria are not internationally recognised refugees? Those escaping from Eritrea are leaving a country which was designated by a United Nations commission of inquiry only a week ago as a country likely to be susceptible to crimes against humanity. Let us contemplate the fate of the Yazidis, the Assyrian Christians and those who have been abducted by ISIS in Libya as they have tried to escape and were beheaded, with another group having been abducted in the last few days alone.
In April, along with 12 other Peers drawn from across the divide, I signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph. We argued that creating internationally policed safe havens—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, in north Africa and the Middle East—would reduce dangerous sailings. Asylum applications could be assessed and repatriation organised where appropriate. We said that it was an urgent priority. It still is. The Government said that such safe havens would create magnets to encourage more people to flee from war, persecution or grinding poverty. But what is the alternative strategy? What exactly is our policy? Should we tell them to stay and be killed, raped, or persecuted; tell them that they can illegally board boats that will be blown out of the sea; tell them that if they reach Italy or Greece we will then slam our doors on them; or tell them we have no internationally agreed strategy for dealing with the immediate crisis or for resolving the conflicts which have driven them from their homes in the first place? That is not moral or legal and it is not worthy of our nation.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I would like to make a number of points about Motion A1, which my noble friend has laid before your Lordships’ House. In doing so, let me say first to my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss that she has been involved in the drafting of this legislation, as she said, even before it was presented as a Bill. However, on Report I passed an article to my noble friend Lord Hylton that he had written in 1996, and which I had kept, about the importance of safeguarding domestic migrant workers. No one has done more in your Lordships’ House than my noble friend Lord Hylton to champion their cause. That is why the noble Lord, Lord Bates, was right to pay tribute to him.
Although this risks becoming like a mutual admiration society, I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, in congratulating the Minister on the exemplary way that he has handled the Bill. It has, throughout, been a bipartisan Bill—the Opposition have played a huge part in it, as have people from all Benches in your Lordships’ House—and a bicameral Bill, with a lot of interaction between both Houses. The right honourable Member for Birkenhead, Frank Field—we all wish him well as he recovers from his recent heart attack—chaired that important committee on the draft Bill. He is right to emphasise the totality of this Bill.
There is no one in your Lordships’ House, including my noble friend, who will put this Bill at risk in any way whatever, but making a good Bill even better is surely what Parliament is all about. We have made this provision better. I will come back to that in a moment, but it is worth pointing out that supply chain transparency, which my noble and learned friend referred to, was not even in the Bill after the pre-legislative scrutiny stage in another place; it was incorporated on the Floor of the House. Similarly, there was no provision in the Bill on domestic migrant labour when it began to go through its stages. We have been improving it as we have proceeded. The Minister will correct me, but I think in Committee and on Report—I was able to take part in all stages of the Bill—around 100 amendments, many of them emanating from the Government after the discussions we had in the meetings that the noble Lord organised for us, were incorporated into the Bill. That is why it is already so much better than when it began.
I take issue a little with my noble and learned friend. It is the job of parliamentarians to be here until Parliament is dissolved. We have not got to the last gasp; this is not Custer’s last stand, as she put it. I certainly do not regard people laying amendments before your Lordships’ House and giving them proper consideration, as we are doing, as blackmail. I think it unreasonable to suggest that. I ask the Government this in that context: why is it that an amendment that was incorporated on domestic migrant labour about a week ago in another place has taken so long to come back to your Lordships’ House? Why is it here on the penultimate day? Why could it not have been here on Monday, for instance, allowing for more consideration if time is really the issue?
As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, rightly said, there is plenty of time for this to go to another place tonight. I have served in one or other of these Houses for the last 36 years. As the noble Baroness said, I remember the so-called wash-ups where we were here all night long dealing with things going between the two Houses until we got it right. Often, we got it much better as a consequence. I think back to the LASPO legislation. I moved an amendment concerning the legal aid provisions for people who had contracted mesothelioma. Your Lordships, across the House, were good enough to support it and it ping-ponged back and forth between both Houses. On the third time of asking, the Government relented and modified the legislation. That is our duty as parliamentarians: to seek as much as we can get and to recognise the moment when no more can be gained. I am sure that my noble friend, who has been in your Lordships’ House for a lot longer than I have been, will be able to remind your Lordships of plenty of such precedents. If we are here tomorrow again debating an amendment and the Commons decide that they do not wish to modify Motion A but wish to persist with it, then we will no doubt hear from the noble Lord what he wishes to do.
I turn briefly to the substance of the amendment. Until we incorporated this new clause, the Bill contained nothing whatever to address the tying of migrant domestic workers to their employers. On two occasions in the last three weeks I have met domestic migrant workers on Cromwell Green, and I know that other Members of your Lordships’ House have done so too. They were brought here by the Kalayaan charity, which the noble Baroness referred to. They told me that when news of the vote in your Lordships’ House on my noble friend’s amendment was announced, a young woman called Marissa Begonia, herself a domestic worker and co-ordinator of the self-help group Justice 4 Domestic Workers, described how she received texts from workers asking her, “Am I free now?”. Unfortunately, of course, the answer is “Not yet”. However, I recognise that the Minister has gone some way today, particularly in what he said about the review, but that review can now take place anyway, regardless of what we decide regarding this amendment. These things are not mutually exclusive.
In a nutshell, the government amendment does not provide additional protections against exploitation. Once someone is trafficked, it forces them to go to the police without any guarantee of protection before they do so. One employment agency told me that it would not place someone on a six-month visa with no hope of renewal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, there is a real risk that it could drive people underground—again, with no access to things such as legal aid.
My noble friend’s amendment merely asks for the most basic of protections, and they are threefold: first, to change employer but remain restricted to domestic work in one household; secondly, if in full-time work as a migrant domestic worker in a private household, the option to apply to renew the visa; and, thirdly, in instances of slavery, a three-month visa to allow the workers to look for decent work. Without these kinds of provisions, we leave in place a system found repeatedly during almost three years to facilitate exploitation, including trafficking of migrant domestic workers.
Many workers coming to Kalayaan describe how they have “sacrificed” themselves for the well-being of their wider family. They do not self-protect in the way that someone with more choices would expect. Many explain that they are prepared to put up with practically any amount of mistreatment if they can provide for their children and ensure that the same will not happen to them.
In 2009, the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its inquiry into trafficking, said that the visa issue was,
“the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers”.
No one is so naive—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bates—to suggest or imagine that the exploitation of domestic workers would be abolished by such minimal protections, but they would certainly be an improvement on the current situation. The Minister referred to the anti-slavery commissioner designate, Kevin Hyland, and said that he did not feel that this went far enough. Well, he is right about that, so let us at least go as far as these amendments and as far as we can by regulation in due course, but let us do as much as we can for the moment.
When the Minister comes to reply, can he say whether the measures might include provisions—maybe as a result of the review—for annual inspections, for checks with the Inland Revenue to ensure that employers have registered and are making reasonable levels of contributions, and for annual meetings between the worker and a trusted authority? All those will be crucial. I believe that my noble friend is right to have laid this amendment before your Lordships’ House and I do not think that it is a question of this being Custer’s last stand. I hope that, from my noble friend’s point of view and because of all the things that he has done in raising this issue in the past, we will continue to give him our support if he chooses to press the matter to a Division.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, all my instincts lead me—I think Members of this House will recognise this—to being enormously sympathetic towards the amendment before us. However, I remind the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that it is not just a question of some people saying that they do not want an amendment because it will hold things up and might mean that we lose the Bill. The argument is that there are serious faults in this amendment which need to be considered.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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“(11A) The Secretary of State may by regulations appoint an organisation or an individual to collate slavery and human trafficking statements, and to maintain a website on which to publish those statements in a form in which the published data is searchable by members of the public without charge.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in introducing Amendments 3 and 6 to Clauses 54 and 57, which are based on Amendments 97A, 98A and 99A which we discussed on Report, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Young of Hornsey, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, for adding their names and to other noble Lords in all parts of the House for the support they have expressed for the principles in these amendments at all stages, not least the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, on the government Benches, and my noble friend Lord Sandwich, who spoke at earlier stages of the Bill on the issues raised in these amendments.
I start by reiterating the welcome I gave in Committee and on Report for Part 6, which is undoubtedly a major step forward in ensuring that supply chains are not being infiltrated by modern slavery. I return to the issue that I raised at Second Reading, in Committee and on Report and, indeed, through public correspondence in the correspondence columns of the Times. Noble Lords may have seen some of the letters that were signed by several Members of your Lordships’ House. At every stage of our proceedings when I have raised the issue, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, has been most attentive and very generous with his time in listening to suggestions on how this part of the Bill might be improved and strengthened. I join others in echoing the remarks made on the previous group of amendments by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, who said how grateful we have all been for the way in which the Minister has engaged. I hope that we will see that again today when he comes to respond to these amendments, although I recognise that the way in which government works may well mean that he has perhaps not been able to gain the support of other arms of government. In those circumstances, only Parliament itself can make the decision, make the pace and ensure that if it believes that the principles in this amendment are worth incorporating, that is done.
These two amendments would allow, through regulation, for a central website to be established on which the slavery reports of businesses may be lodged. This has not only been supported by noble Lords; it has been consistently asked for by civil society groups, which have so much experience of working with businesses on supply chains. I was delighted to receive support from Amnesty International UK, Anti-Slavery International, CAFOD, the CORE coalition, Dalit Freedom Network UK, the Evangelical Alliance, Focus on Labour Exploitation, the Law Society, Quakers in Britain, Traidcraft, Unseen and War on Want. I am also grateful for the letter I received from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which supported the principles outlined in the earlier Amendment 99A and reflected in the amendment today.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the way he has addressed the issue. Whatever the outcome today, I will of course work with him, as I have done all the way through on this issue as we have considered these proceedings. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, gave us part of an old French saying about encouraging others. I think the first part of that saying is that you should shoot a few admirals to encourage the others—certain noble Lords are not here at the moment, so nobody will take that personally.
It is certainly not my desire that we should shoot this Minister—indeed any Minister, but not this one in particular. As I said in my opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, has been exemplary in the way that he has dealt with the House throughout all our proceedings. He is a fine example to other Ministers in piloting legislation through your Lordships’ House. He has offered us today a consultation which is under way, the “tech camp”, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, referred to earlier—which is welcome—and more guidance. In a way, at the end, he pointed to the difference that stands between us: whether something should be in the Bill—a point alluded to by my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss—or whether it should be purely discretionary. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, pointed out, this is actually a discretionary amendment, because it allows for regulation and says, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, “may” not “must”. It will be there for the Secretary of State to use. Therefore it is not prescriptive in any great sense.
The noble Lord has told us that we should wait for a consultation, but I cannot think of an organisation—and I cited many in my opening remarks—that we would consult about this proposal that has not already come out in favour of a central repository which should be available to prevent people from having to trawl across the internet to find individual companies. How on earth is anybody going to do that? Who will know who makes the threshold required in this legislation and who does not?
The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and my noble friend Lady Young said that we should learn from experience. The Californian experience has been cited here. If only they had their time again. It is not about the inability of people in Silicon Valley, as the Minister said, to construct a website. It is quite the reverse. It was the failure of legislators to place a requirement in their legislation that such a central website should be provided, so there would be a repository where everyone meeting the threshold would have to place an account of what they were doing to combat modern-day slavery and human trafficking. There are moments when Parliament needs to help Ministers out and this is one of them. I therefore beg to test the opinion of the House.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I am a signatory to this amendment and am very happy to speak briefly in support of it this evening. I spoke on this issue at Second Reading and in Committee and I moved a separate amendment on the issue of the proceeds of crime. That was based on an amendment that I moved in your Lordships’ House nearly a decade ago and which was supported at that time by a retired Law Lord, Lord Wilberforce, who was a direct descendent, of course, of the great man who has featured so much in many of our debates. That amendment sought to provide a mechanism for the proceeds of crime committed by those who had abused workers, exploited people, put them into servitude or slavery—the very things that the Bill seeks to address—to be used to support and provide assistance for those who had been exploited and to support those organisations that are charged with the responsibility of apprehending those who are responsible for such crimes.
Crimes they are. I recalled in Committee that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority—which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who is in his seat this evening, did such distinguished work in helping to create—was established after the fatalities that occurred in Morecambe Bay when some 23 Chinese cockle pickers, men and women, died while they were being ruthlessly exploited by gangmasters. I made the point that this problem has not gone away. As recently as 2011, an almost identical incident occurred not very far away from Morecambe Bay, in the Ribble valley estuary. I quoted a local fisherman, Harold Benson, who said that what had happened at Morecambe Bay had been wholly avoidable, but it was likely to be repeated at places such as the Ribble valley and Morecambe Bay because of the failure to apprehend those who were responsible and because of the failure to provide adequate safety equipment and to provide support and assistance to those who were being exploited in these unacceptable ways.
As a result of raising these issues I was pleased to be able to attend a meeting with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and the noble Lord, Lord Bates, who has been so helpful on this and so many other issues during the passage of the Bill. I reiterate what I said on Report on Monday, that he and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, have been quite exemplary in the way they have treated all of us who have participated in these proceedings. This is a marvellous piece of legislation and one that I am sure is going to do great good in the future. Although we may disagree on some details here and there, the general thrust of the legislation is to be commended and we must look for other ways to improve it here and there. That is what this amendment does.
The right reverend Prelate has told us that if this is passed, or if the principle is accepted, the Secretary of State will then consult on ways to strengthen and improve the resources of enforcement agencies such as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Why do we need to do that? Well, I made the point at earlier stages that until recently only about 37 people were employed by that authority and that resources had been cut between 2011 and 2014. I would be grateful if the noble Lord would share with us some of the detail that he provided during the briefing sessions that we had with him and his officials as to how many people are now employed by that authority and how many convictions they have been able to bring about.
The amendment says that the consultation should,
“end no later than 1 January 2016”.
I think that that is a reasonable passage of time. It goes on in proposed new subsection (3) to say:
“The Secretary of State may by order amend section 3 of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 to include other areas of work where the Secretary of State believes abuse and exploitation of workers or modern slavery or trafficking may be taking place”.
This is reasonable; it does not ask for immediate action to be taken, but it asks the Secretary of State and the department to take a more detailed look at some of the issues that have been raised. I look forward to hearing the response that the noble Lord gives in due course.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, rise to support Amendment 92 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, to which I have added my name. This amendment is about prevention and about stopping unscrupulous employers from exploiting workers for personal gain and increasing profits. Without compliance mechanisms and a licensing regime in place, there are no checks on the activities of the corrupt to protect the vulnerable. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate are that check. They give protection, prevent abuse from happening, and work hard to ensure compliance with employment rights. They want to do more and they know that they could do more—we know that they could do more—but they need reform and increased support.
As the organisation, Focus On Labour Exploitation, has pointed out to noble Lords in its recent letter, the GLA is the UK’s only proactive labour inspectorate working to prevent and identify incidences of trafficking for labour exploitation. Therefore, the GLA has a major role to play in tackling slavery and forced labour, and it should be a part of this Bill. That is a point well made, not just today by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, but made in the past by many other noble Lords. It is a point reiterated by the Government, as set out by the Minister in his letter on 18 February, where he recognised the essential role in fighting modern-day slavery that the GLA plays, and could play in future—words that I hope he will reiterate in his reply today.
Like many other noble Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to hold a public consultation on the role of the GLA as soon as possible in the next Parliament. So given that there is an emerging consensus around the need to consult on the GLA to review its remit and functions, and an acknowledgement that the GLA would need more resource to cope with an expanded remit, Amendment 92 should be completely acceptable to the Government, as it is ensuring exactly that—that labour inspection and enforcement authorities have sufficient resources and remit to prevent trafficking and slavery in the UK.
Amendment 92 confirms the commitment to consult and seeks to use the proceeds of crime to provide the extra funds that the GLA and EAS need. It also moves the Government’s pledge of a consultation in the next Parliament from “as soon as possible” to a definite date by the end of 1 January 2016, and it enables any recommendations from the consultation to be put in place quickly and easily. It therefore gives this House an increased level of confidence and clarity. I therefore hope that the Government will take the opportunity provided by this amendment, for this important enabling power to give the House the assurances that it needs.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Young of Hornsey. I strongly support her Amendments 93 and 94 and the government amendments in this group.
Like my noble friend, I thank the Minister for meeting me and other noble Lords and a number of civil society stakeholders earlier this month to discuss transparency in supply chains. Noble Lords will recall that I and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley and Lady Mobarik, raised this issue in Committee. I also spoke about it at Second Reading. The Minister kindly said that, unusually following the Committee stage, not only would he have a meeting with colleagues in the House but that he would invite all the interested groups involved in this issue to meet him and the Peers who were able to be there. With the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and others, we were able to have an extremely helpful and useful discussion.
I welcome the amendments that the Government have tabled for Report, and I believe that they could take us a step closer to delivering effective transparency and accountability on action to eradicate modern slavery from the supply chain. Of course, I hope that this evening the Minister can be enticed to take a few more steps down the road that we have been travelling.
While I welcome and am most grateful for the progress that we have made, there are three areas on which I want to speak and on which I am hopeful we can agree some way forward. My Amendments 97A, 98A and 99A each raise an important outstanding issue that we ought to address before the Bill completes its parliamentary passage if we are to ensure that the supply chain clause works effectively in practice as we all want. It might be helpful to the House if I mentioned that the groups that support these amendments include Amnesty International UK, Anti-Slavery International, CAFOD, the CORE coalition, Dalit Freedom Network UK, the Evangelical Alliance, Focus on Labour Exploitation, the Law Society, Quakers in Britain, Traidcraft, Unseen and War on Want. While I pay tribute to them for the support they have given, I link with them Ruth Chambers, who has done an extraordinary amount of work on this. Sometimes the real heroes and heroines behind legislation are the people who do the hard slog.
I heard today from the Equality and Human Rights Commission and had a chance to have a brief conversation with one of its representatives. It subsequently sent me a statement about this group of amendments and, in particular, Amendment 99A. The commission’s recommendation is to:
“Support Amendment 99A … insofar as it would give the Anti-slavery Commissioner power and sufficient resource to take enforcement action”.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, raised the issue of resources in earlier debates, and they will be the make or break for this Bill. If resources are not provided, it will not be worth the paper on which it is written, but I am pretty confident that the Government are going to back up the rhetoric in this legislation with the necessary resources. I hope we will hear more about that when Minister comes to reply. The commission also says:
“In our analysis, extending this enforcement power to the Anti-slavery Commissioner would be desirable as it would strengthen his/her role and ensure that enforcement of the duty to prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement could be carried out independently of government. We consider that the Commissioner should be given a range of further powers, including the ability to require the disclosure of data and information, to conduct investigations and inquiries and to hold agencies to account for non-compliance with laws and policies”.
I am sure the Minister will have seen this statement. It was issued only today, and I am glad to be able to draw it to the attention of the House.
Government Amendment 97, as I have mentioned, is welcome as it sets out a number of areas on which slavery and human trafficking statements may include information, but I stress “may” in this context. The amendment does not go so far as to introduce minimum disclosure measures, which are really necessary if we are going to create a sort of equality of arms. As it stands, government Amendment 97 would still leave it entirely optional as to what companies put in their statements.
I listened very carefully to what the Minister said in Committee on this matter and recognise that different types of businesses will face different challenges in relation to their supply chains. It is a perfectly fair point that he has made, but he also indicated that the Government want a level playing field for industry. This is also something that businesses have called for. Sir Richard Branson, for example, has been supportive, as has Associated British Foods, the parent company of Primark, which I was able to meet in January with my noble friend Lord Patel. I was particularly appreciative of their support. My noble friend Lady Young referred a few moments ago to the tragedy in Bangladesh, and it was partly arising out of what happened there that I felt it would be helpful to have a discussion with Primark. I believe that the wording I have suggested in Amendment 97A strikes an appropriate balance that will allow for some flexibility while ensuring a level playing field between businesses on what they must disclose information about. This will also enable comparison across industry sectors as we will then be able to compare like with like.
One area about which I am particularly disappointed that the Government have not changed their position is the need for a central place in which the slavery and human trafficking statements can be uploaded and scrutinised. This is a very reasonable proposition. My Amendment 98A would introduce a requirement to upload the statements on to a central website maintained by the office of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. Significantly the designate commissioner, Kevin Hyland, is supportive of this idea and I am grateful to him for meeting Ruth Chambers last week to discuss this.
Ensuring that each company uploads its own statement is a light-touch, practical way of spreading the administrative costs so it is onerous neither for business nor for government, but I am aware that the commissioner will have limited resources, so if this amendment is accepted then his budget will need to reflect this new responsibility. Why is this central repository needed? Quite frankly, without it the role that the Minister has described on many occasions for civil society, investors and the media to hold businesses to account for their supply chains—as he wants them to do—will be nigh on impossible to achieve. This is because of the time and the effort which would be needed to be spent just working out website by website which companies had reported and which had not. Then of course there are the difficulties that such stakeholders face in accessing the annual turnover information that would indicate which companies fall within the compliance threshold.
Amendment 98A would also require companies to include within the director’s report a fair summary of the statement and the web address of the full statement. This link to the director’s duties in the Companies Act 2006 would ensure that company directors took this provision seriously, and will help to propel responsibility for tackling slavery and supply chains into the boardroom. It would not be burdensome or costly to have this additional reporting and it reinforces a point that my noble friend Lady Young made in her remarks a few moments ago. It will also draw the slavery and human trafficking statement to the attention of mainstream investors who might otherwise not be aware of it and empower them to ask questions of the company. Making directors responsible for reporting on what the company is doing to eradicate modern slavery will ensure that it is part of core business. Boardroom responsibility will also change the culture of businesses and create an environment of a race to the top, thereby increasing the pace at which slavery is tackled within supply chains. I think this would also be good for UK plc, if I can put it that way, as it would promote better business practices which would in turn lead to better profitability and enable UK businesses to play a more leading and competitive role on the global stage.
On Monday the almost ethereal presence of William Wilberforce was regularly drawn to your Lordships’ attention and he was cited on a number of occasions. It is significant that when William Wilberforce was campaigning for an end, first, to the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and later to all slavery, some argued that to abandon slavery would be ruinous for UK business interests. Of course, that did not turn out to be the case at all. Indeed, our reputation worldwide was enhanced by the results that the Clapham group was able to bring about as a result of its concerted actions in both our Houses of Parliament.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
I am grateful to the Minister for the response he has given to my amendments. He will have heard the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, ask him whether, between now and Third Reading, he would look at the matter again. Let us forget some of the fringe or side issues as to where the website should be based and so on, but surely between now and Third Reading the principle of there being a central repository where this information is gathered, which the noble Lord has just accepted during his remarks—for which I was grateful and I appreciated what he said—could easily be clarified. I think that would meet a lot of the anxieties that have been expressed in your Lordships’ House this evening.
The reality is that the caravan moves on and as soon as this legislation has been enacted—and we will all cheer when that happens because it is profoundly important, worthwhile legislation—the pressure will be off to put some of these other things into place. Welcome though reviews, consultations, tech sessions and the rest are, the reality is that we should put in a requirement that there should be a central repository—and I personally wish we could go as far as requiring directors to have a summary of it in their annual reports as well—the principle of which has been accepted by the Minister. Surely we could have an assurance that that could be considered between now and next week.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, indicated, I am one of those who put my name to the amendment, and I am very happy to add my support to it in a short intervention this evening. Before doing so, I endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said about the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of both the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, in dealing with Members from all sides of the House during the passage of this legislation, whether in the series of meetings organised in your Lordships’ House or in the face-to-face meetings with some of us who participated at the Home Office. We are all grateful to them for that. It is exemplary and it should recommend itself to other Ministers who are keen to facilitate their legislation through Parliament. This, of course, does not mean that we have always been of one mind or that we are necessarily going to agree about Amendment 27 to Clause 40.
The issue is the accountability of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. I suspect that it may be one of those issues where we will not find agreement because it cuts right into lines of accountability through the Home Office. Departmental issues may take precedence over what I think may well be the private views of members of the Government but which they may not be able to voice here this evening.
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is commendable for its clarity. However, as he also indicated, it is a shrewd amendment, not least because it is based on the Children and Families Act 2014. If what we did a year ago was right in that context, surely it is right to follow exactly that precedent here again this evening.
It seems to me that one of the most important things is to recognise that, however good the nature or good will of individual Ministers, they, and even Home Secretaries, come and go. We are in a period where we face a general election. There may be a different set of Ministers—perhaps from the same party or maybe from other parties—in the very near future, so assurances given on the Floor of your Lordships’ House in the course of debate, even though they are given in good faith, cannot carry over in the same way that legislation carries over. Parliament does not come and go, unlike individual Ministers, and that is why it is so important that we place these words on the face of the Bill.
There have been plenty of precedents where uncomfortable, inconvenient and untimely issues have arisen, and departments have endeavoured to shelve them or kick them into the long grass, to suppress them or simply to ignore them. This amendment would prevent that. If we deemed such a provision to be necessary to protect children, surely it is necessary to protect victims of slavery, many of whom will in any case be children.
In a letter to me just a couple of days ago, on 20 February, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, Mr Kevin Hyland, said:
“My independence will be unwavering, whether that be toward law enforcement, government, the private sector or indeed any organisation”.
I repeat:
“My independence will be unwavering”,
in the direction of government, as he specifically states. Either he is independent or he is not, and this amendment gives him the parliamentary access which will guarantee him that unwavering independence. I hope that this evening the Government will indicate either that they will take this matter away and look at it between now and Third Reading or that they will recognise the spirit in which the amendment is being moved by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, and give some guarantees to the effect that he is seeking.
Lord Rosser
While the government amendment is welcome in extending the remit of the anti-slavery commissioner and allowing the commissioner to appoint his or her own staff, there are other areas where there still appear to be constraints on the commissioner's independence.
The commissioner must still seek prior approval of strategic plans from the Home Secretary on his or her activities and areas of focus, and annual reports may also be subject to redaction before they are laid before Parliament and published. Apart from the impact on the commissioner’s independence, it is not clear within what timeframe this checking and seeking clearance has to be undertaken in order to avoid the prospect of delays, for example, in the publication of a report or the approval of a plan or programme. The delaying of the publication of reports by the Home Office is an experience apparently not unknown to Mr Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.
Annual reports from the anti-slavery commissioner may be redacted on the grounds that material may jeopardise the safety of an individual, prejudice an investigation or, in the view of the Secretary of State, be against the interests of national security. Perhaps the Minister could say how frequently it has been necessary to redact reports where the same conditions and criteria as it is proposed to place on the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner’s reports already apply in relation to comparable commissioners or bodies.
As has been said, following the passing of the Children and Families Act 2014, the Children’s Commissioner can bring any matter to the attention of Parliament. And again, as has already been said, the Explanatory Notes to the 2014 Act state that the commissioner might do this, for example, through annual reports to Parliament or by writing to the chair of a relevant Select Committee. Under the 2014 Act, the Children’s Commissioner must as soon as possible lay a copy of his or her annual report before each House of Parliament.
In his letter of 16 February, the Minister said that,
“the Government’s intention has always been that the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be independent”.
But it appears that there are varying degrees of independence—or lack of independence, depending on which way one wants to look at it. Perhaps the noble Lord could say whether the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will be in the same position when laying his annual report before each House of Parliament or writing to the chair of a relevant Select Committee as is the Children’s Commissioner under the Children and Families Act 2014—and, if the answer is no, why that should be the case.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 38, 39, 41 and 46. These amendments are to Clauses 41, 42 and 43. I put on record my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and my noble friend Lord Sandwich, who are all signatories to these amendments.
In moving the amendment, it is my privilege to take up—rather inadequately, I suspect—the cause so passionately espoused by my noble friend Lady Cox, who is unable to speak to this amendment due to a prearranged visit overseas. These amendments relate to an aspect of modern slavery that we are in danger of overlooking despite the efforts of my noble friend—who, while we are meeting, I might add, is currently in the war-torn areas of Sudan that she has frequented so often, where she will no doubt be seeing first hand some of the ravages of modern slavery that have been so familiar in that country. This was an issue that she highlighted at Second Reading and again in Committee. I know that, while grateful to the Minister for the meetings that he has arranged and for the letter that he kindly sent to Peers, she was nevertheless disappointed that that letter omitted any mention of this issue of the global nature of slavery, which had been raised by Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House.
I recognise that the Bill focuses on modern slavery in the United Kingdom, and that is right and proper. Yet modern slavery is by its very nature a global phenomenon; it cannot be tackled by one Government alone but requires a global solution. With the exception of the section on company supply chains, which we will come to on Wednesday, and which can address the issue only in a limited way—albeit a vital and necessary one—there is no mention of the global dimension of modern slavery at all in the Bill, let alone any measures requiring the UK to play its role on the world stage. These amendments therefore seek to address that omission. For every person trafficked in the UK there are dozens of children in forced labour in Uzbekistan’s cotton mills, hundreds of women and girls trafficked into Thailand’s brothels and thousands of men, women and children exploited in bonded labour in India and Pakistan.
The scope and scale have been rehearsed often enough during debates on the Bill and I will not repeat them all again here. Suffice it to say that far more people are affected today than throughout the era of the transatlantic slave trade, which is even more reason for us to take up the cause of Wilberforce, Clarkson, Equiano, Roscoe and the other abolitionists celebrated by one of the banners in Westminster Hall marking memorable parliamentary achievements. The Bill should deserve to be celebrated in the same way as those achievements, but it risks falling short if it does not address the global dimension of modern slavery.
The irony is that the Bill was announced amid a cacophony of claims that the UK was, or wanted to be, leading the world in the fight against modern slavery. That is of course a noble aspiration, but we can never make any realistic claim to be world leaders unless we tackle the problem globally and recognise that every country and sector of society has to play its part—business, the public, the Government and non-governmental organisations have to contribute. However, this will not happen until and unless countries move beyond the parochial and recognise that they face common issues; that there are often international links as well as the cross-border movement of people; and that there are groundbreaking approaches in one part of the world that could be used elsewhere, whether in legislation, enforcement, prevention and protection or the rehabilitation and reintegration of survivors.
In recent times there has been a change in language from government departments acknowledging that we are dealing with a global issue, and I welcome that. In particular, I welcome the stepping up of our international response within the Modern Slavery Strategy published last autumn by the Home Office. It is significant that the intention is to identify priority countries, not just those that are the source for significant numbers of victims trafficked into the UK but also countries suffering disproportionately from a high incidence of modern slavery. Moreover, the strategy includes the prioritisation of activity to tackle modern slavery in those countries by working with foreign Governments and civil society organisations. The Government are to be congratulated on this aspect of the strategy. However, as your Lordships well know, a strategy can be discontinued or changed at the drop of a hat. That is why it is essential to undergird this and to ensure continuing prioritisation by making annual reporting on global modern slavery a legislative requirement.
On the previous group of amendments, I mentioned that Kevin Hyland wrote to me and other Members of your Lordships’ House on 20 February. On page 4 of his letter he said something which relates directly to these amendments:
“British Embassies and High Commissions will develop Modern Slavery Priority Country Plans, working with both international and locally based partners, including the UN, faith leaders and local NGOs. I want to see an increased focus on preventing modern slavery from happening in the first place.
I will support and challenge the development and implementation of these plans and will push to ensure a fully coordinated response when the crime does occur”.
In essence, these amendments place those responsibilities outlined by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner in that letter of 20 February in the Bill, and require the commissioner to monitor trends in slavery and human trafficking around the world and the measures taken to address them in order to gain a better understanding of the problem, its causes and solutions and to identify best practice, as well as opportunities for co-operation and collaboration.
Amendment 39 requires each embassy and high commission of the United Kingdom to submit an annual report on slavery and human trafficking in its area of operation to the commissioner. Amendment 41 sets out aspects to be included in these reports. Requiring embassies and high commissions to report will ensure that the workload is not too heavy for the commissioner. I know that there will be some concern about adding to the duties of the commissioner, but he does not seem to be unduly concerned about that, certainly reading the letter I have just mentioned. This approach is a significant improvement on the Modern Slavery Strategy, which puts the inter-departmental ministerial group on modern slavery in the role that I am advocating. I am convinced that that is not appropriate. It requires an independent assessment, which is surely an appropriate task for the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner.
These measures are important because they set out a mechanism for gathering vital information to help build a comprehensive picture of modern slavery across the world and how it is being tackled. This is essential for developing a strategy that will address the issue effectively, hence the requirement in Amendment 38 for the reports to cover not only the extent and nature of modern slavery but legislative and enforcement measures and details of the care, rehabilitation and reintegration of survivors. This section also requires reporting to include any relevant initiatives supported by the UK Government, so that effectiveness can be monitored, and any relevant activities of international bodies or non-governmental bodies, so that we can learn from effective approaches and in the right circumstances support such activity to increase effectiveness. These requirements are deliberately not prescriptive in order to allow the precise format, coverage and emphasis to be developed according to the needs of the moment.
The amendments set out what the commissioner will do with the information reported to him. These reports from embassies and high commissions will inform and shape his strategic plan. They will also enable him to include in his report a statement of the nature and extent of slavery and human trafficking in these areas as well as in the United Kingdom.
My final amendment to Clause 43 ensures that, for the purposes of this section, “specified public authority” shall also include all embassies and high commissions of the United Kingdom. If, as the Home Office strategy indicates, tackling modern slavery around the world is our intent, it should be in the Bill. These amendments ensure that. They will also encourage joined-up thinking between the Home Office, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DfID, something I know that the Minister of State at the FCO, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, wishes to see. I know that efforts to achieve that have already begun. However, in many ways one of the strongest arguments for adopting these amendments is that they will certainly encourage the addressing of these conditions that are conducive to modern slavery, and will therefore support the work of the Home Office, the FCO and DfID.
Poverty, displacement and conflict are common root causes. Modern slavery is as much a gross abuse of human rights and dignity as it is a crime. It is all too common to discover that lack of access to education, healthcare and employment opportunities all play their part. A desperate need for medicine or treatment is all too often the push factor in driving individuals to succumb to apparent job offers that promise financial reward but deliver only despair and exploitation; for example, in the many forms of bonded labour found particularly in south Asia, the nexus of modern slavery.
We would be well advised to take note of Dr Aidan McQuade, CEO of Anti-Slavery International, when he reminded us in a recent Guardian article:
“How the UK and other governments comport themselves in the coming weeks will be a critical test of how serious they are”.
The rest of the world is looking on to see how serious we are; we really can lead the world, if we are bold enough to address the global issue. In her foreword to the Government’s strategy the Home Secretary wrote:
“The time has come for concerted, coordinated action. Working with a wide range of partners, we must step up the fight against modern slavery in this country, and internationally, to put an end to the misery suffered by innocent people around the world. Together, we must send a powerful message to all traffickers and slave drivers that they will not get away with their crimes. And we must do all we can to protect, support and help victims, and ensure that they can be returned to freedom”.
I wholeheartedly agree. To that end, I reiterate my thanks to other noble Lords who have offered their support and I beg to move.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I am very glad to support the amendment and I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for having introduced it.
This seems a particularly acute and disturbing example of how we live in a totally interdependent world. It is to live in a fool’s paradise to think that we can find the solutions by acting on our own within the confines of what we call the United Kingdom. This is an international issue—an international disease—and it has to be tackled internationally. Our credibility in building up the kind of international action that is necessary will relate very much, as the noble Lord has just emphasised, to how the world sees our serious commitment within the United Kingdom to putting muscle into our concern.
I will say also that I am one of those who welcomed the bishops’ letter last week. I was thinking about this earlier in our deliberations this afternoon when we were talking about how we tackled this issue in the United Kingdom in courts, and about whether there had been prosecutions, convictions and the rest. All that is crucially important, but it is happening in the context of a values crisis. We have to ask ourselves very seriously what the prevailing set of values is that established the context within which all these things happen.
I am not a doctrinaire socialist—or, at least, not a dogmatic socialist. I am pragmatic in my socialism; there is a place for the market. However if you build up a culture in which the market is supreme, and it is, to say the least, an amoral market, where is the authority and the ethos within which you can make a success of these things because of the conviction that is there? There have to be other absolutes besides price as regards the kind of society in which we want to live. If we really want to be effective in this, we must have international action and effective legal arrangements in Britain. However, we must work at developing a sense of decency and solidarity—internationally, as well as within our own society—in which these things are unthinkable. If they are just another extension of the market, where people say, “Well, I can make money this way. Why don’t I do it?”, where will we be?
I remind the House, as I have done before, that Adam Smith, who made such an important contribution to the context and concept of economic liberalism and capitalism as it operates, did not at first, as a young man, write about economics at all. He wrote about ethics. He was a very strong Scottish Presbyterian. He took the ethics and values of society for granted and then approached the market. I am afraid that we have bred a society in which the market as a driving force has been seen as something that does not have to take values into account, unless it is forced to do so, and that is what we have to tackle in all these issues if we are ultimately to be successful. However, I really do congratulate the noble Lord on having reminded the House about the indispensability of international solidarity in this campaign.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bates. He certainly was reading my mind when he referred to Amendment 36 and the replacement of “elsewhere” with “internationally”. If that is all that the Government can offer, it is not just that I do not find that a very comforting or acceptable approach; it is more about what my noble friend Lady Cox will make of this when she returns from Sudan. I would not want to be in the Minister’s shoes when my noble friend comes back from those troubled parts of the world. I do not think that it will satisfy her either.
The noble Lord referred to William Wilberforce. I was thinking as he said that that Henry Thornton, one of Wilberforce’s supporters, defended him when he was accused of being interested only in issues overseas. William Hazlitt had criticised Wilberforce for not also taking up the cudgels to deal with things such as children being sent down the mines and public health issues at home. In defending Wilberforce, Thornton said that it was rather like criticising Christopher Columbus for discovering America but not going on to discover Australia and New Zealand as well. In other words, there is only a certain amount that you can achieve at any one time.
I recognise that the noble Lord has made huge efforts during the course of this Bill, along with many Members of your Lordships’ House, to make great progress. He has used the metaphor of being on a journey on a number of occasions. He struck that same metaphor in the response to this debate in reminding us that there is a strategy that will affect all departments from the Santa Marta Group. I pay particular tribute to the British ambassador to the Holy See, Nigel Baker, who has played a very important part in facilitating the discussions begun by that group and which have helped to concentrate the minds of people elsewhere in the world on these questions. He was also right to remind us that the appointment of the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner will be an important contribution to highlighting these issues overseas.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, was right to remind us of the question of the budget. We did not get an entirely satisfactory reply from the Minister on that point. I thought my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss put her finger on it, as always, when referring to the letters sent by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner in saying, “Are these powers sufficient?”. We still do not really know the answer to that. I am not in a position to make that judgment this evening.
I recognise that the Minister has shown a lot of good will, in his usual manner, in dealing with the amendment. Again reverting to the imagery he conjured of Wilberforce and his companions, it took them 40 years to get from the beginning of what they wanted to achieve to the end. In the immediate aftermath of the passage of the anti-slavery legislation—Wilberforce was on his deathbed when word was brought from Parliament that it had been enacted—it was very significant that all over the world, not least in the American Congress, other legislatures followed the example that had been set in the United Kingdom. We should look back to that period and remind ourselves that what we do here will affect what goes on elsewhere. That is why it is important that we get this legislation absolutely right. Although I want to reserve the position of my noble friend Lady Cox, who will no doubt be in touch with the Minister on her return—she may want to return to this at Third Reading—for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, with her customary clarity, passion and eloquence, my noble friend Lady Cox has set out the arguments for Amendment 94, to which I am a signatory and which other noble Lords support, too. I was very struck in the representations we received about this amendment by what was said by the Trades Union Congress. It supported the recommendations of the Joint Committee and particularly highlighted paragraphs 224, 225 and 227, to which I shall come in a moment.
Before referring to those paragraphs in detail I will simply make the point that a reinstatement of the position that my noble friend has described, the pre-2012 position, is what we should look towards; the one that was originally enacted in 1988, with very good reason. Her amendment also concentrates our mind towards those who are in domestic service attached to diplomats. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Sandwich and others during the course of these proceedings and during other debates about the particular circumstances that such workers often find themselves in.
Returning to the Joint Committee, it is worth the Government looking again at what the Joint Committee had to say. In paragraph 224, it said:
“The difficulties faced by this group of workers appear to have been compounded by changes made to Immigration Rules in 2012 which had the net effect of removing their right to change employer, and thus denying them one means of removal from an abusive situation”.
In paragraph 225, it said:
“Evidence we received challenges the assumption that such mechanisms provide adequate protection … Tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse; it is slavery and is therefore incongruous with our aim to act decisively to protect the victims of modern slavery”.
Paragraph 227 states:
“We recommend the Home Office reverse the changes to the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa. This would at the very least allow organisations and agencies to remove a worker from an abusive employment situation immediately. It would also enable the abuse to be reported to the police without fear that the victim would be deported as a result. This in turn would facilitate the prosecution of modern slavery offences”.
I do not think one can do better than to rehearse those arguments from the Joint Committee because it clearly looked at this issue in some detail and everything that is in my noble friend’s amendment would give statutory provision to what it said.
I was also struck by my noble friend’s comment about what happened in another place. David Hanson MP moved an amendment similar to the amendment moved by my noble friend. As she said, it was narrowly defeated in Committee on a Division only after the chair added his vote to the no votes—so opinion in another place is clearly divided. That is another good reason why we should revisit this issue.
Sadly, the Government have so far declined to accept the Joint Committee’s recommendations and have claimed that existing and planned measures will be sufficient to protect migrant domestic workers. They have put significant emphasis on the fact that theoretically all overseas domestic workers have the protection of UK employment law while working in the UK. While in theory that may be so, and in theory they can take a case against an employer to an employment tribunal, in reality and in practice that right is denied to domestic workers on a tied visa. In addition to barriers, such as cuts to legal aid, which we have already referred to, if they want to avoid breaching the Immigration Rules, tied domestic workers must take a case against their employer while remaining in that employer’s home. It is totally unrealistic for these workers to take any kind of legal action against an employer who has potentially trafficked them, exploited them and denied them their most basic rights while still living with their home.
The noble Baroness referred to the charity Kalayaan. It told me that of the 120 domestic workers that it had registered on the tied visa system in the two years since the April 2012 changes, fewer than five had taken an employment case and none had gone to a tribunal. Domestic workers often report to organisations such as Kalayaan that their employers confiscate their mobile phones or refuse them permission to make calls during working hours, which can be excessively long, thereby ensuring that they cannot access services such as ACAS.
I asked for an example to illustrate the situation, and I will briefly mention it. It is a case study of a young woman called Nerita. She was brought to the UK by her employer to work in their private household. She explained that she came from a poor family in south India and her husband, children and elderly parents are dependent on her remittances for their support. This is a very important point. If someone is dependent on the money that you are sending them, that plays into all the emotional arguments and the blackmail that can be used against people in that situation.
An agency found Nerita work with a family who lived in the Middle East. She described having to borrow the agency fee from various relatives. It took over a year to save the money on her meagre salary to repay the loan. She accompanied her employer to this country in 2014. Her conditions of employment changed little when she came to the UK. She worked seven days a week from 7 am until midnight. She was not permitted to leave the employer’s home unaccompanied. Her passport was taken from her when she started working for them and was never returned to her. She slept on a small mattress in the children’s room. Her salary was the equivalent of £150 a month while she was in the Middle East, but she was not paid at all during her time in the UK.
She described being regularly verbally abused by her employer. She was told that she should not speak because she was a servant. The employer also threatened to send Nerita back to India. Nerita speaks very little English and was not aware of the terms and conditions of her visa. Her family’s situation in India is desperate and she was distressed to learn that as she had come to the UK on a tied visa she could work only with the employer who brought to the UK—and then only for a maximum of six months. When she asked for Kalayaan’s support in getting her passport back, it had to explain that involving the police—the point referred to a few moments ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—would almost certainly result in her being detained and her passport being confiscated until she left the UK. Kalayaan has spoken to Nerita about referral to the national referral mechanism, which we discussed earlier on, as a victim of trafficking. However, that would provide only short-term support for this very vulnerable woman. As she came to the UK on the tied overseas domestic worker visa, she will not get the justice she deserves. That is why we should support Amendment 94 in the name of my noble friend.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Does she not accept that the figures that she has just given to the Committee are very dubious? How can evidence of this kind by collated? By definition, many of these will be people who are frightened out of their minds about going to any of the authorities. The Kalayaan figures demonstrate that: the discrepancy between the number of people who approached it and then those whom it was able to take on was a very tiny percentage. Is this not just the tip of an iceberg? By ignoring it we are not going to help the situation at all.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I entirely accept what the noble Lord says; it may well be the tip of an iceberg. However, I am setting out that the Government are trying to tackle this problem, in a way that previous Governments have, by the dual action of contacting the employers and the workers to ensure that both are aware, before they come to work in this country, of their rights and responsibilities.
I entirely accept the difficulty of identifying the people who are abused, but I assure noble Lords that anyone who is abused, once that comes to light, will be treated with the sort of help and support that one would expect from a country with our rich tradition of giving refuge to people who have problems. While working over here, they of course have the protection of UK employment law. Anyone who believes that they are being mistreated can take action to report it. As I say, the measures we are taking extend the ones that previous Government have taken. The numbers that are coming forward appear to be stabilising because we are taking measures to try to ensure that the employers and the workers have a full view of their rights when they come here.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I support noble Lords who have spoken in favour of these amendments, moved and spoken to so ably by my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall.
At Second Reading, and indeed in the debate on my Amendment 32 about the proceeds of crime and creating a victims’ fund that could be used to resource the authorities that are involved in trying to police trafficking, I referred to the tragedy that occurred in Morecambe Bay, which led to the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in helping to create this authority. Noble Lords will remember that 23 Chinese men and women drowned in Morecambe Bay, having been taken there by gangmasters in order to go cockle-picking. A local fisherman, Harold Benson, said at the time that what happened was,
“not only awful beyond words—it was absolutely avoidable”.
However, the lessons of Morecambe Bay have not been fully learnt. As we consider this legislation, which provides us with the only vehicle to tackle these kinds of issues—it is timely, it is good legislation and it is an opportunity—the question for the House is: is there more that needs to be done? At Second Reading, I referred to academic work that has been done at the University of Durham, which identified not only the need to extend the mandate of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority but the need for more resources. In 2011, 30 miles away from Morecambe Bay, in the River Ribble—not far from where I live—17 cockle-pickers of eastern European origin had to be rescued when they were in precisely the same situation as those in Morecambe Bay. We have not overcome the problem. We have set up an authority to deal with it but we have not adequately resourced that authority or put sufficient powers into its hands.
Indeed, when I looked at the figures, I was struck by the fact that only 37 people are employed by the authority and they have to cover the whole of Great Britain. Between 2011 and 2014 its budget was cut by some 17% and in 2013—I asked for the numbers of convictions—only seven people had been convicted. That does not fill me with great confidence that it is able to do the job that it was asked by Parliament to do. The authority is a wonderful creation. It has been given reasonable powers but they need to be extended. It certainly needs more resources.
This enabling provision, which my noble and learned friend referred to as being a modest amendment, would provide Ministers with the necessary belt and braces in the future to do more as and when the authority feels it wishes to. Not to put such a provision in the Bill will lead, as my noble and learned friend said, to the messiness of having to come back to Parliament. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, told us, it would require parliamentary time. That seems to be the wrong way to go about this. We have the opportunity here to put something into the legislation that would give the Government the ability to act, and it is an opportunity we should seize.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for tabling this amendment, and to other noble Lords who have spoken with such concern about the issues around the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, particularly its remit.
This Government are committed to ensuring fairness in the workplace, tackling worker exploitation and encouraging and raising levels of compliance with workplace rights across all sectors. We are already doing this through the use of existing enforcement arrangements. We very much welcome the many comments that have been made in support of the GLA and its vital work. It has been operating for less than 10 years but it is a successful organisation doing excellent work in tackling harmful activity affecting workers who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the sectors that it currently covers.
We need to consider this carefully and ensure that in seeking to broaden the GLA’s remit, we do not risk undermining the good work that is being done already. As the noble and learned Baroness pointed out, it is a comparatively small body, with only 66 staff. It performs a targeted role in an effective way and has a positive influence in the broader fight against exploitation. We very much want that to continue.
Following the Red Tape Challenge exercise and the triennial review, the GLA is implementing changes that will lift unnecessary burdens on compliant businesses while enabling a stronger focus on enforcement action. It is important that both these aspects are developed and move forward together.
Amendment 97 provides for a very broad power, enabling expansion of the GLA’s scope, remit and powers. Changes in the scope or remit of the GLA may very well be sensible; that is something that we will wish to consider further and which the Government have said that they wish to keep under review. However, we are not convinced that Amendment 97 meets that need or is the appropriate way to deal with the issue at the moment.
The amendment is open-ended. The enabling power could be used to set up the GLA to tackle all forms of slavery, trafficking and exploitation far beyond employment. That is a very big step away from the GLA’s current remit, where it has been so effective. It would require a dramatically different organisational and funding model to achieve a much broader role, which would likely require further primary legislation, as has been alluded to. Amendments 97A and 101A focus specifically on the remit, enabling the current licensing regime to be extended to additional industrial sectors beyond agriculture and food. Noble Lords have mentioned a number of sectors where this would be particularly relevant.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who introduced the Bill in 2004 that established the GLA as a body to carry out a licensing regime and to take enforcement action against unlicensed activities. We need to progress on both these fronts. It would be interesting to discuss with the noble Lord why he did not seek to extend the remit from the two sectors that were mentioned in the original Act.
We have concerns about extending the regime to new sectors without clear evidence that that represents the most effective and efficient approach. Licensing affects the compliant business and the rogue gangmaster alike. The majority of gangmaster businesses are highly compliant small and medium-sized enterprises that are generating employment and economic growth for the UK. We would not want to burden them unnecessarily with regulation.
Simply extending the current licensing regime into new sectors would not necessarily improve efforts to tackle exploitative employers who flout the law. We need to focus on seeking and bringing to justice serious criminals who enslave innocent victims. So we wish to see a GLA with a strong focus on anti-slavery and worker exploitation that will support the Government’s broader strategy on modern slavery. We are working for that through an approach that builds on the GLA’s already excellent work.
I will set out some of the work that is already happening to develop the GLA. Bringing it into the Home Office has already increased collaboration and capability through easier contact with other law enforcement agencies engaged in addressing and disrupting serious criminal activity, including human trafficking for worker exploitation in the UK. The GLA is playing a full part in the better business compliance partnerships—a programme that will begin operation shortly. These pilots will look at more efficient ways of bringing together a wide range of compliance and enforcement officers locally. We expect the GLA to bring knowledge and experience to the problems identified in these areas to tackle worker exploitation and illegal working.
The GLA is working with the University of Derby to devise training and to develop an anti-slavery training academy for use by supply chain businesses. This will build on the GLA’s excellent existing collaboration with business in its regulated sectors. The GLA is well placed to tackle the serious worker exploitation that lies between the more technical compliance offences that fall to be investigated by HMRC and the serious and organised crimes that are addressed by the National Crime Agency.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee raised the concerns of the CBI, which we share, about the appropriateness of this measure and the expansion not just into other sectors but of the remit of the GLA. We have a very good working agency in the GLA and it is tempting to extend it beyond its natural remit too quickly and without due consideration of all the factors that would be required to make entirely sure that any extension was appropriate and as efficient as the GLA.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, mentioned the inadequacy of the fines and the sentencing. Sentencing is a matter for the courts and there have been some low fines issued against convicted unlicensed gangmasters, but she may be reassured to know that the first custodial sentence for an offence under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act was imposed in December 2013 when a Lithuanian national was given seven years for operating without a licence. He ran an organised crime operation in Norfolk and controlled scores of workers brought over from his homeland, using tactics including debt bondage, psychological and physical intimidation, and violence. We have heard from other noble Lords of some appalling examples of the way in which workers can be treated by gangmasters. Fines have been increased for magistrates’ courts and Crown Courts, depending on the seriousness of the offence, so hopefully the levity of the fines is currently being tackled.
I can assure the House that there is a great deal of work going on within government to improve the work of the GLA and to consider its future. We will, of course, ensure that today’s contributions are considered during that work and we will further consider whether it might be expanded in sector or in remit. For the moment we do not feel that this particular legislation and these particular amendments are the best way of moving forward, but obviously we will discuss this again and I hope that meanwhile noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It is indeed. I do not have that evidence directly to hand but it is probably something that the University of Derby will be considering in its work in investigating and reviewing this.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, pursuant to that point, would the Minister also look at the evidence that I referred to earlier from the University of Durham, which looked at the mandate, the remit and the resources available to the gangmasters? In the case I referred to in 2013 they found that the gangmaster had given no safety equipment, issued no guidance and had no knowledge of the sea or the tides, and yet 17 eastern European workers were exposed to what was potentially a fatal situation in the Ribble estuary. Surely that demonstrates that something is amiss here and that we need to do more. Perhaps between now and Report we could look further at the empirical evidence that is available.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, that is an excellent idea. We will do that and come back at Report.
“Slavery and human trafficking statements
(1) For each financial year, a commercial organisation within subsection (2) must prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement.
(2) A commercial organisation is within this subsection if it—
(a) supplies goods or services, and(b) has a total turnover in respect of that financial year of not less than £60 million or such lesser amount as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State.(3) For the purposes of subsection (2)(b) an organisation’s total turnover is to be determined—
(a) by reference to the activities of that organisation worldwide;(b) by aggregating the worldwide turnover of that organisation with any other organisation which forms part of the same group undertaking; and(c) otherwise in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.(4) A slavery and human trafficking statement for a financial year is—
(a) a statement of the steps the organisation has taken during the financial year to identify and address slavery and human trafficking—and which complies with the minimum requirements set out in subsection (5); or(i) in any of its supply chains, and(ii) in any part of its own business,and which complies with the minimum requirements set out in subsection (5); or(b) a statement that the organisation has taken no such steps with an explanation of why the organisation considers such conduct to be appropriate.(5) A slavery and human trafficking statement shall give details of—
(a) actions taken to assess the risk of the presence of slavery and human trafficking in the organisation’s operations and throughout its supply chains;(b) who has been involved in the assessment of such risks and the extent to which such persons are independent of the organisation;(c) what risks have been identified, and what action has been taken to mitigate any risks which have been identified;(d) whether any slavery or human trafficking has been identified and, if so, what steps have been taken to address it, including action to support victims;(e) the extent to which information for assessment and monitoring has been gathered directly at suppliers’ sites and whether such information has been verified by independent persons; and(f) any such other matters that may be specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State under this section.(6) The organisation must publish the slavery and human trafficking statement in each of the following ways—
(a) if the organisation has a website, it must—(i) publish the slavery and human trafficking statement on that website, and(ii) include a link to the slavery and human trafficking statement in a prominent place on that website’s homepage;(b) upload the slavery and human trafficking statement report to the website maintained for that purpose by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills under subsection (8);(c) an organisation which is obliged to prepare a director’s report in accordance with section 415 of the Companies Act 2006 shall include in that report— (i) the name of any director who has taken responsibility for slavery and human trafficking issues within the organisation (or a statement that no director has taken responsibility),(ii) a fair summary of the slave and human trafficking statement, and(iii) the web address where a copy of the report may be found, or if the company does not have a website a statement that a copy of the report will be provided on written request.(7) If the organisation does not have a website, it must provide a copy of the slavery and human trafficking statement to anyone who makes a written request for one and must do so before the end of the period of 30 days beginning with the day on which the request is received.
(8) The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shall maintain a website—
(a) on which it shall publish slavery and human trafficking statements which are uploaded to the website or delivered to it under subsection (6)(b);(b) in a form in which the published data is freely searchable by the public.(9) The Secretary of State—
(a) may issue guidance about the duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section; and(b) must publish any such guidance.(10) Evidence under subsection (9) may in particular set out the kind of information in addition or supplemental to that set out in subsection (5) which may be included in a slavery and human trafficking statement.
(11) The duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section are enforceable by any of the Secretary of State, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Financial Reporting Council; or such other person as may be specified by way of regulation, any of whom may bring civil proceedings in the High Court for an injunction or, in Scotland, for specific performance of a statutory duty under section 45 of the Court of Session Act 1988.
(12) Where a commercial organisation is in breach of any duty under this section the commercial organisation and every director, partner, or other person occupying an equivalent position shall have committed an offence.
(13) It is a defence for any person charged with an offence under subsection (12) to prove that he took all reasonable steps to ensure compliance with this section.
(14) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (12) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum and on conviction on indictment to a fine.
(15) This section shall be reviewed by the Secretary of State 3 years after the section comes into force and following this review the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a report assessing the effectiveness of the section and recommending whether any amendments should be made.
(16) For the purposes of this section—
“commercial organisation” means—
(a) a body corporate (wherever incorporated) which carries on a business, or part of a business, in any part of the United Kingdom, or(b) a partnership (wherever formed) which carries on a business, or part of a business, in any part of the United Kingdom,and for this purpose “business” includes a trade or profession;“group undertaking” shall have the meaning set out in section 1162 of the Companies Act 2006;
“partnership” means—
(a) a partnership within the Partnership Act 1890,(b) a limited partnership registered under the Limited Partnerships Act 1907, or (c) a firm, or an entity of a similar character, formed under the law of a country outside the United Kingdom;“slavery and human trafficking” means—
(a) conduct which constitutes an offence under any of the following—(a) section 1, 2 or 4 of this Act, (b) section 57, 58, 58A or 59 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (trafficking for sexual exploitation), (c) section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 (traffic in prostitution etc), (d) section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 (trafficking for exploitation), (e) section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour), (f) section 47 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour), or(b) conduct which would constitute an offence in a part of the United Kingdom under any of those provisions if the conduct took place in that part of the United Kingdom;“supply chain” means those raw materials, purchases, processes, products, labour, services and transportation by means of which the company’s goods and services whether or not for sale to customers are acquired, manufactured, assembled or otherwise produced from their original source up to and including their sale or provision to the company’s customers;
but a company’s supply chain shall not include those products and services that are acquired, rented, leased or otherwise used by a company for a purpose which is incidental or ancillary to the matters referred to in the definition of supply chain above.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said, this is the second of three amendments that consider supply chains. It is an issue that I flagged up at Second Reading. The amendment emerged from a meeting which I chaired in this building with many of the charities and non-governmental organisations involved in this question. I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley and Lady Mobarik, and my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth, who are all signatories to the amendment. I also thank those Members of your Lordships’ House, some of whom are here this evening, who signed a letter to the Times last Saturday supporting the arguments outlined in the amendment—about 20 Members from all sides. On the same day, the Daily Telegraph published a letter signed by 19 of the leading charities and non-governmental organisations, also supporting the proposal.
Inevitably, we want in the amendment to take the opportunity, while legislation is before your Lordships’ House, to tackle the problem, not to leave it, as the Minister said, to a consultation and review process, which can seem like the long grass. The Government have every reason to be very proud of the Bill. I welcome the fact that they introduced Clause 51—Part 6—at a late stage in another place, but clearly it was not subject to all the pre-legislative scrutiny that everything else in the Bill received. There was some, but not much, and it was not considered in Committee in another place. Therefore, we have a particular duty, while these issues are before your Lordships’ House, to spend some time on them. There are 16 subsections in the amendment, so I hope that the patience of your Lordships’ House, even at this late stage in our deliberations on the Bill, will not be too exhausted as I try to describe why so many Members and organisations outside the House feel that they are necessary. All the signatories of both letters I have mentioned welcome the inclusion of a new requirement for business to report on slavery and forced labour in their supply chains, but the provision must be strengthened if it is to drive real change in company supply chains.
Lord Bates
I agree, and my noble friend Lady Mobarik made a very good point by making it clear that it is out of enlightened self-interest that business ought to be pursuing these things. We also need to recognise that we introduced into the Companies Act the requirement for ports to carry a statement on human rights. As with so many of the issues raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady McDonagh, this relates to human rights. You could almost say, without waiting for anything else, that the current legislation that requires a report on human rights could be broadened to include a statement on the human rights of the people involved in the supply chain. Those types of things might give urgency to it. On the assets idea, from my experience of business, nothing grabs the attention better of the chief financial officer, the chief executive or the chairman of the board and the people who invest. The noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, referred to about 20 institutions of the size of Hermes, which is a huge fund, and Rathbone. When they put weight on that, when they hold shares and hold votes to determine who is the chairman of the board and the non-executive directors and what the remuneration of the senior employees should be—that is precisely the type of group that will grab more attention for these important issues than possibly even more specific legislation.
I am conscious of time, but I am also conscious that I want to pay respect to the two tablers of the amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, with an undertaking to meet and continue the dialogue; and to give an assurance that we will do further work, if or when we meet between Committee and Report, when we will have the terms of reference for the consultation to look at. We can get some early responses to that and see what can be done further to reassure the noble Lord that the Government see this very much as a way of starting down the road. As with all these things, business should be aware that once you start putting down legislation such as this, it tends to be a one-way street. You do not go back. If people do not comply and if business does not take it seriously, this Government or future Governments will say that there is a demand and that they need to act to put more legislation down for businesses to comply with. So I hope, with that canter around the issues, but with some specific commitments to look carefully at this, that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the Minister has been generous in how he has dealt with the issues that have arisen, especially at this late hour. I was struck that he talked about how sinners repenteth, when I was thinking more that Ministers are damned if they do and damned if they do not. I am personally appreciative of the fact that the clause is now in the Bill and, of course, it is incumbent on noble Lords to try to build on provisions in the amendment.
One might use another metaphor about the bird in hand. On this occasion there is a Bill in hand, and a legislative opportunity. We cannot come back in another year from now with legislative proposals. This is the time to make them and I do not think that any of us wants to feel that the moment has passed without our doing justice. I reiterate that, because this is something that came into the Bill so late in another place, it is something to which, outside your Lordships’ House, we should give more time and attention. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, Lady McDonagh and Lady Mobarik, as well as my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth for the contributions that they have made in supporting the principles that underpin this and the other amendment before your Lordships. I am also grateful for the Minister’s willingness to meet those who tabled the amendments and the large array of those involved in this issue.
The Minister said that the important thing was to grab the board’s attention to get them thinking about these things. He is right about the power of investment and resources. I was very struck that Matt Crossman at Rathbone Greenbank Investments, which has more than £900 billion of investment, said:
“It is in the best interests of business to join the fight against modern slavery … Specific, but proportionate, legislation can allow companies to continue making progress, whilst ensuring that firms can no longer turn a blind eye to these issues”.
Naheeda Rashid of Hermes, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, said:
“Companies which are able to demonstrate that they understand and are actively addressing the complexities of the risks in their supply chains will be better placed in managing both their reputation and disruptions to their operations”.
That is what these amendments seek to do—they put real flesh on the bones of Clause 51. I hope that, when the House resumes after the Christmas break, we will have a chance to hold the meetings to which the Minister referred. I hope that Report will not be reached for some weeks, which gives us some time to do that. With the assurances that the Minister has given us, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Review
(1) Within 5 years of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must—
(a) carry out a review of the provisions of this Act,(b) carry out a review more broadly about the current position of slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking within the United Kingdom and internationally, and(c) prepare and publish a report setting out the conclusions of the review.(2) The report must in particular—
(a) set out the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act, (b) assess the extent to which those objectives have been achieved,(c) assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved in another way, and(d) consider the strategic plans and annual reports submitted by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner.(3) The Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I fear I have drawn the short straw and may be exasperating one or two noble Lords, but this is the last amendment and I do not intend to delay the Committee for very long. In many ways, the amendment is self-explanatory: it calls for a review of the legislation within five years of the passing of the Act—the review could come much earlier than that, if it was so desired. The report would,
“set out the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act, … assess the extent to which those objectives have been achieved, … assess whether those objectives remain appropriate … and … consider the strategic plans and annual reports submitted by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner”.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for proposing the amendment. The Government are committed to post-legislative scrutiny of legislation under the existing arrangements agreed with Select Committees. The Government believe that post-legislative scrutiny is generally preferable to ad hoc and potentially inconsistent specific statutory requirements in individual Bills. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report into legislative standards praised the Government’s record on post-legislative scrutiny, saying:
“We urge the Government to continue to produce these useful memoranda. In return, we will undertake, and we take this opportunity to encourage other Select Committees to undertake, more visible post-legislative scrutiny work when opportunities arise”.
Since 2012, the House of Lords has established committees on an ad hoc basis specifically to conduct post-legislative scrutiny. I am sure that the House will consider carefully whether the future Modern Slavery Act would be a good candidate for such scrutiny.
However, I would like to place on record once more the Government’s commitment to providing a post-legislative scrutiny memorandum on the Bill within three to five years of Royal Assent. The Government will consult the Home Affairs Committee on the timing of publication of the memorandum, but that is a commitment. In the longer term, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner will continue to assess the response to modern slavery and how it is provided, and if new forms of abuse emerge. In addition to the commitment of a memorandum in three to five years, we will also have the update of the Modern Slavery Strategy, produced by the interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery. We will also have the anti-slavery commissioner’s annual report, which I am sure will be awaited with great interest by Members of your Lordships’ House.
There are therefore a number of opportunities for this type of scrutiny to happen. Having taken part in the Leader’s Group, which considered ways to improve the workings of your Lordships’ House and elsewhere, I have to say that one of the joys of this Bill is that it has been a textbook example of how legislation should work: first, producing a Bill, which is scrutinised in pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government then come back with a revised Bill and go through a meaningful stage in another place where amendments are made. The same happens in this place, so it seems to me absolutely logical that we should not leave the job unfinished but follow it through right to the end. That is why we are very much behind this commitment. We will produce the Explanatory Memorandum to ensure that that post-legislative scrutiny does arise.
Given that this may well be the last time that I am on my feet in Committee, I thank your Lordships for the way in which we have engaged in this very tough and passionate four days. It has given a huge amount of work for officials to think about and work on between now and Report. Somebody once said: “To govern is to choose”. There are going to be so many issues that we are going to have to work on that we will have to engage in some prioritisation about what is absolutely critical to get in the Bill before Royal Assent and what work can be continued under the watchful eyes of your Lordships and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner thereafter. That work and the meetings will continue and we look forward to making further progress on Report. I thank the noble Lord and ask him to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, if, as the Minister has said, this legislation has been exemplary in the way in which it has been handled, and I think it has been, then I would also say, and I do not think I would be alone in saying this, that the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, have been exemplary in the way in which they have treated each of us. I can only speak for myself as a Cross-Bencher, but I suspect that it is a view shared across the Chamber that throughout proceedings we have been treated with great courtesy and thoughtfulness in the way in which the amendments have been considered, not least this amendment. I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has promised that post-legislative procedures will be put in place. Obviously, I would prefer it to be in the Bill, but he will not be surprised by that. However, I feel very pleased with the assurances that he has given to your Lordships. I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Lord is right in saying that the measures we have put in train should avoid that situation arising again. We are seeking to identify the victims before prosecutions are brought, to ensure that all the relevant evidence is there and that all the concerns about their situation are brought to the fore in any legal case.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for the responses she gave to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy. She will have seen the representations by the Refugee Children’s Consortium, which refer to the link between the compulsion test and the reasonable test. Specifically, it says:
“Now the compulsion test no longer applies to children, the reasonable person test in relation to children is obsolete and should also be removed”.
As the noble Baroness goes away to reflect on the points made in this very helpful debate, will she promise us that she will look specifically at the representations made by the consortium?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, we will, indeed, look at them very carefully because it is important to get this right.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I, too, would like to raise one or two questions about Schedule 3, since my noble friend Lady Kennedy of Cradley has given us the opportunity to consider it.
As I understand it, under Clause 45, a victim is not guilty of an offence only if they have done the act which constitutes the offence because they have been compelled to do that act, the compulsion is attributable to slavery or the relevant exploitation and a reasonable person in the same situation as the person, and having the person’s relevant characteristics, would have no realistic alternative to doing that act. If the victim has managed to meet these requirements, Clause 45(1) still does not apply if the offence committed is listed in Schedule 3, which, as has already been pointed out in another way, extends to six and a half pages of offences. Some are easily understandable for being on that list, such as murder, manslaughter and kidnapping, but others are not so obvious bearing in mind the requirements under Clause 45 that the victim will already have had to meet in order to use Clause 45 as a defence.
In view of that, how does the Minister justify the need for such an extensive list of offences for which a victim can be found guilty even though they have met the three requirements to which I have already referred under Clause 45(1)? How and against what criteria was this list of offences compiled? To look at one example, included in the list is an offence under Section 25 of the Immigration Act 1971 of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state, which is an offence one might normally associate with a trafficker rather than the victim. Is there evidence that victims of trafficking are committing this offence of assisting unlawful immigration to a member state unrelated to their being trafficked themselves? If there is, is it also appropriate that they could be found guilty of such an offence, despite meeting the requirements in respect of compulsion and the reasonable person test under Clause 45(1) to show that they cannot be guilty of an offence unless it is listed in Schedule 3?
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, I am puzzled by this. In Part 5, Clause 45(1) seems clearly to set out, in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), under what terms prosecution would ensue or not ensue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, has rightly told us, the danger with lists is that there may well be things that have not been included on the list that might in due course pertain. I simply ask what may be an entirely innocent and naive question: why is it not possible to put in the Bill a generic term rather than having to have all these details in the legislation?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, for tabling Amendment 83A and for asking whether Schedule 3 should stand part of the Bill, which relate to the offences excluded from the statutory defence for victims. I also thank my noble friend Lady Hamwee, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Rosser, for their contributions.
As we have previously discussed, Clause 45 establishes a statutory defence for slavery or trafficking victims where they have been compelled to commit an offence as a direct consequence of their slavery or trafficking situation. As we discussed in the previous group, this builds on the existing use of prosecutorial discretion by the CPS backed up by bespoke guidance. Ultimately, the courts can stop an inappropriate prosecution of a victim as an abuse of process.
Noble Lords questioned how Schedule 3 was drawn up. It was drafted very carefully in consultation with the DPP and CPS. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned in his previous intervention, it is very important that we get involvement from the DPP and CPS in drafting these pieces of legislation. As I have said, it was with approval and consultation that this list was drawn up. There is a need for appropriate safeguards to ensure that a new defence is applied effectively and is not open to abuse, for example by organised criminals, even if they once have been trafficked themselves. There is a delicate balance to be struck and we want to get that balance right.
Amendment 83A, together with the suggestion that Schedule 3 should not stand part of the Bill, would mean that the defence could apply to any offence, including serious sexual and violent offences such as murder and rape. People who have been enslaved or trafficked may commit criminal offences in a wide variety of circumstances and it will not always be the case that a defence is justified. We must not create a defence so wide that it amounts to a loophole in the law. It is important that we protect not just victims but also society. As we developed the statutory defence, our approach was always to ensure that we covered the types of offences often committed by those who are enslaved or trafficked. We have taken detailed advice from the Crown Prosecution Service on this point. As I have mentioned, the offences listed in Schedule 3 reflect those discussions and discussions with the DPP.
The defence is therefore designed to provide an effective protection against prosecution in the types of circumstances that actual victims of modern slavery find themselves in—for example, cannabis cultivation. The list of excluded offences in Schedule 3 can be amended by statutory instrument if experience shows the offences listed are not right and fail to protect vulnerable victims. But, in order to avoid creating a dangerous loophole for serious criminals to escape justice, we think it is right that the defence is not available in the cases—mainly serious sexual and violent offences—as listed in Schedule 3. This does not mean that a victim who commits a Schedule 3 offence in a modern slavery context will automatically face prosecution. Where the defence does not apply because the offence is too serious, the Crown Prosecution Service will still be able to decide not to prosecute if it would not be in the public interest to do so. It is right that in very difficult cases involving very serious crimes, including rape and murder, the Crown Prosecution Service carefully considers both the victim of trafficking and the victim of a very serious crime, and seeks to act in the public interest.
I understand the concern of noble Lords that victims should not be inappropriately criminalised; we agree on that, but that is why we are strengthening protections for victims in the Bill. We must be careful, however, that we do not create a loophole for very serious criminals. In the most serious cases, it is right for the CPS to use its discretion—and I emphasise that there is always discretion in these cases—to act in the public interest, based on the specific facts of the case. We are, of course, open to further discussion before Report, but I hope that these assurances will enable the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I congratulate the Government on that; I think it is splendid.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
I add my congratulations to those of my noble and learned friend. The Government have listened to the representations that have been made and their response is to be greatly welcomed.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, rather in parenthesis, a few moments ago the Minister introduced a new component into the debate when he talked about the financial implications that might be involved were we to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McColl. Can he give us a figure? He has talked about the financial implications and must have some idea of what the cost might be. I was surprised to hear that argument being produced in your Lordships’ House. Does he have a figure that he can share?
Lord Bates
I think that what I am getting at there is self-evident. If you extend the service of child trafficking advocates, clearly there is a cost implication. I was not suggesting at any stage that that was in any way an argument for or against. I was simply saying that it ought to be taken into account before we embark on an extension of the scheme. I am happy to write and come back on that, with further information about the basis of our assessment.
On the points made by my noble friend Lord McColl, it is intended that the functions and role of advocates in any national scheme will be set out in regulations. This will give the advocates the desired legislative basis without forcing us to make decisions about their role prior to the outcome and evaluation of the ongoing trial. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee accepted our approach—a point I have already made. We accept that a different approach has been taken in Northern Ireland, where an advocates scheme has not been trialled prior to setting out details of it in the Bill. It is our position, however, that the detail of advocates’ roles covered in the Northern Ireland Bill can be covered in our regulations, should this be supported by the findings of the ongoing trial. This takes in the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, when she said that there was a description effectively set out in the Northern Ireland legislation; that could be taken into account. We know that the pre-legislative scrutiny committee acknowledges that there is no one-size-fits-all in terms of advocacy schemes.
This is worth underscoring briefly. We accept that this is not a homogeneous group. This is not a group of people who have had similar experiences or who have similar needs. They are a very heterogeneous group and have different needs that must be addressed. That ought to be taken into account. The report highlighted that the Scottish system, which works very well without any legislative basis, would not necessarily translate well into England and Wales because of the different circumstances regarding trafficked children in different areas.
While we are concerned about child victims of modern slavery, the current trial and the provision in the Bill are focused on a particularly vulnerable group—namely, trafficked children. We know that trafficked children need to receive consistent support and protection to avoid them going missing and being retrafficked. We agree with my noble friend that the Bill is not the appropriate place for measures to extend the provision of advocates to all unaccompanied children, given its specialist focus on modern slavery.
I have dealt with the points raised in particular by my noble friend Lord McColl. I am aware that other points were raised. As I said when we discussed previous amendments, we will reflect on those points very carefully. I am sure that my noble friend Lord McColl, who accurately anticipated my response to his amendment, will probably tell us that he wants to revisit this issue later in our proceedings—which of course is his right. Perhaps in the interim we could have more discussions about how we can ensure that these child trafficking advocates work in the best way possible. We might also be able to share some interim findings from the trial that started in September, which would help inform the debate. With those assurances, I ask the noble Lord to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, Amendment 86M, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is important in its own right and I am happy to support it. The amendment includes a period for reflection and recovery, which will be particularly helpful to overseas domestic workers who have been exploited or abused and who may have little or no English. I believe the amendment could be a ladder by which these overseas domestic workers in England, and particularly in London, could have access to legal aid and due process in civil cases as provided for by the Government’s Amendment 85, which was accepted earlier. In particular, if applications on behalf of aggrieved persons could be made by NGOs and law centres, the thing might be made to work and it would help those who particularly need it. For years we have seen bad and vicious employers enjoying a large measure of impunity. This must be ended. The amendment seems to agree with the Government’s stated wish to improve protection for victims.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I would like to be associated with the remarks from my noble friend Lady Cox concerning the potential gaps that people could fall through and her remarks and questions about the national referral mechanism and legal representation for those who are caught up in trafficking.
I particularly support Amendment 86J, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and Amendment 86M, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. There is a link between these amendments because the noble Baroness quite rightly identifies those who may have been psychologically traumatised by their experiences. She rightly said that people could be extremely vulnerable and very badly damaged. Any of us who have met people who have been trafficked know that that must be true. If people have been concealed in a vehicle, smuggled into the country and exploited in the ways that have been described in speech after speech in Committee, these grotesque experiences will have maimed them psychologically. Hence it is important that there should be some psychological assessment and support for people who may be suffering from acute trauma and mental illness of one kind or another—something that is always neglected anyway in the National Health Service for our own citizens, let alone for people who have come through these kinds of experiences.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, is right to say that people should be assessed psychologically during the investigation of the offence. That theme is picked up in Amendment 86M, in subsection (6)(c) of the proposed new clause, where the noble Lord, Lord McColl, would make provision,
“to assist victims in their physical, psychological and social recovery”—
a point returned to in proposed new subsection (10)(c) with,
“medical treatment, including psychological assistance”.
This is a recurring theme in these two amendments and I am surprised that provision is not being mandated anyway by the Bill and wonder whether it is not possible to do what the noble Baroness and the noble Lord have argued for. What do the Government intend to do to safeguard people who may be suffering from mental illness and who may have been traumatised through their experiences?
Modern Slavery Bill
Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Doocey
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. It is an emotive topic, which absolutely everyone around the Committee wants to get right. We are all on the same side; this is not a question of one person versus another.
I feel strongly that we need a child exploitation clause. I have no doubt about that but will deal with a couple of points. The Minister gave an example of where the CPS had prosecuted somebody who was begging. I can give the Minister a number of examples where the CPS has not prosecuted in the case of begging, because it was advised that it was not possible to do so. The Minister also said that bringing babies into this country from baby farms with a view to illegal adoption would, under our laws, be illegal. I do not think that anyone would disagree with that, but you would have to find the people who had adopted those children illegally, and unless you did, how on earth could you prosecute them? We need to stop it happening. The Minister also said that it would be necessary to encourage the police to prosecute, but I worked with the Metropolitan Police for eight years and do not believe that they need any encouragement to prosecute. What they need are the tools of their trade in order to do so.
I certainly would not consider trying to argue points of law with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and other noble and learned legal eagles, because I do not know the law. However, what I do know is that every single NGO that works on the ground with children says that what we have at the moment is not working. In this Bill, we have a cut-and-paste from lots of other Bills, putting it all in one place. But there is a major gap in the lack of a child exploitation clause, because it is not possible to prosecute somebody for exploiting a child under the Bill unless you can also prove that they were trafficked with a view to exploitation.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
Before the noble Baroness goes any further, I wish to reinforce the point that she made. She referred to the work that she has done with the Metropolitan Police. I suspect that she will have seen the debate in another place that took place on 4 September. I will cite the quotation given during that debate from a chief inspector of the Metropolitan Police who pointed out the flaws of the current proposals from a prosecution perspective. These were his words:
“If I was reading this from a lay perspective, I would not read into this Bill that a child begging, or using children to obtain fraud which is to their detriment, or putting a child out on the street to steal for sometimes 12 to 18 hours a day is trafficking and exploitation”.
Is that not the main thrust of the argument of the noble Baroness and why, between now and Report, we need to take very seriously the amendment that she has moved?